


Conditional Victory

by Pumpkin_Spice_Hedgehog



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Brotherly Love, Chaos Emeralds, Chaos Theory, Drama, Extreme Gear, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Major Illness, Sonic World Adventure | Sonic Unleashed, Sonic: Night of the Werehog, That Boulder from Indiana Jones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pumpkin_Spice_Hedgehog/pseuds/Pumpkin_Spice_Hedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year and a half after the defeat of Eggman, a literal addiction to the Chaos Emeralds renders Sonic too ill to move. The only way to save him is to bring back what's killing him--a task Tails and Knuckles will not leave unfinished. As they traverse the world, they acquire help from Sonic's many friends and rivals and encounter all kinds of surprises, but as Sonic deteriorates and emotions start running high, friendships will be tested and fears will be faced. Whether or not they can save their hero in time will depend on many things, none of which are in their control. Do all things really work together for good?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to my personal favorite of all my works to date! This idea came to me one morning during that wonderful phase between sleep and awareness; I tossed the premise around in my head for about a week before writing it down. One summer later, I had written this, a work which I am still pretty excited about. I really poured my heart and soul into this story, so I sincerely hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog or any related characters, places, or concepts. I just like to torture the poor guy.

Against all odds, life was as normal as could be.

It was strange to think about how much things had changed in less than two years, since the defeat of Eggman. In the absence of the doctor, the world had truly undergone an incredible transformation. No one else had stepped up to fill the mad scientist's place, and thus no cities were being threatened and no angry gods were being awakened. It had taken a while for people to completely let their guards down, but at present things were almost as peaceful and relaxed as could be. The world was left with the kind of trouble which the law could handle, like thieves making off with people's laptops in fast food restaurants and drivers testing red lights and causing car wrecks.

Of course, a whole team of super-powered heroes was a bit much for situations caused by stupidity as opposed to those brought forth by genius; therefore, after almost six years of faithful service, Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends were, at long last, free to live their lives the way they wanted to. Everyday domestic life had taken some time to get used to (Sonic had even complained about it for longer than anyone had been happy with), but in the end, even he couldn't deny the blessings brought by the prosperous, free world they had fought for years to earn. Life took a different, more homely turn for the successful heroes; Knuckles learned to let go of the Master Emerald on occasion, Rouge came to be friends with a majority of the team, Silver and Blaze came and went as they pleased from their homes in the future and the Sol Dimension, and Sonic taught himself to play the guitar. A few of the gang even began attending school with the intent of at least finishing high school--just like normal teenagers.

But school eventually let out for summer break, and they were left without anything to do--just like normal teenagers. It almost made them all miss what Sonic already called the “glory days.” The initial first-week-of-summer rush of sleepovers and pizza parties ended all too soon; then, the boredom of summer hit, and very often that meant drastic measures were taken in order to find something, anything to do.

Of all the things Tails had expected for this summer, however, the fostering of romance within the gang was not on the list; so when Sonic tossed a comment over his shoulder on his way out of the workshop, he dropped his wrench in surprise.

“You're doing what?!” he demanded; he had tried not to shout, but he was unfortunately loud enough that Sonic jumped slightly.

The hedgehog turned back around in the workshop doorway. “I said I'm heading out with Amy,” he repeated slowly with a little smirk. “You forget how to speak English?”

“Did you?” Tails shot back, cerulean eyes wide as dinner plates. “Sonic, you're going out with Amy? Just like that?”

Sonic shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah. I probably wouldn't have brought it up, but-–”

“What about, 'Oh-–'” Here Tails slipped into his best Sonic impression--“'if I go out with her even once it'll be like telling her that I've loved her all my life and I just don't feel that way and–-'”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Sonic broke in, muzzle reddening slightly. Tails quirked an eyebrow at him with an expression that was both confused and suspicious. “So I've said that a time or two. I figure, maybe it won't be that bad.”

The ten-year-old looked at his big brother with the most emotionless expression he knew how to make. “Just because she's quieted down lately doesn't mean she won't still think like that. Have you lost your mind?”

“Yeesh, buddy, I thought you'd be all excited.”

Tails paused with his mouth open to retort. _He's right,_ he realized, _I should be teasing him or something. What's with me?_ He quickly chalked it up to the suddenness, at least for the sake of the hanging conversation. “Sorry, Sonic, I was just kinda preoccupied and... well, you took me by surprise.” He forced a smile; “Really, that's awesome. Have fun.”

“Will do. I've got my phone if you need me.”

This time, Tails didn't have time to react before his sixteen-year-old best friend was gone, leaving naught but a gust of wind in his wake. _What was that for? He's never told me that before--he doesn't usually even remember to grab his phone in the first place!_

As he turned his eyes back to the Tornado, the fox's mind wandered, mulling over the conversation with a quizzical mindset. By all accounts, Sonic had acted fine up until he'd started to leave, but something intangible about his behavior concerned Tails nevertheless. Was Sonic up to something else? He wouldn't use a dating excuse to cover just anything; but then again, he had never covered anything on purpose before, either, at least to Tails' knowledge. Did this development bother him and he was just hiding it? Tails didn't want to see Amy hurt if Sonic did something stupid because he was insincere, and he was pretty sure Sonic was smarter than to risk that.

 _Maybe this is just a different side of Sonic--Sonic in love._ That prospect made Tails snicker a little; perhaps he'd just have to watch this development a little more closely.

~~~ 

That night, Tails enjoyed the quiet of being by himself. It wasn't terribly often that he had the whole house to himself for longer than five minutes; Sonic practically lived here, and their friends had made the place almost a social hub--it was the first place everyone would go when they didn't have anything else to do. It wasn't like he minded it, and most of the time he enjoyed it; but he considered the rare moments of quiet to be things to cherish whenever possible.

Of course, it didn't last. About the time the sky darkened completely for the night, Sonic breezed into the living room with a tired sigh.

“Hey, Sonic,” Tails greeted him without looking up from the documentary he was watching on his laptop. “How was your date?”

“Friendly outing, FYI,” Sonic retorted flatly before lazily throwing himself onto the couch with a _whump_ noise and causing the soft cushions to inflate briefly underneath the occupants. “And it was fine. Nothing to report.”

Tails glanced up for a second to note the hedgehog's position; his head hung dramatically over the back of the sofa, and he held his hand over his forehead as if pushing back a headache. “You okay?”

“Huh?” Sonic picked his head up immediately like he'd been called out for sleeping in class. “Oh, yeah, just kinda beat. Think I spent too much time running, too much time socializing... y'know, the usual.”

“Seems to be getting easier these days,” the fox commented dryly, the better part of his focus back on the movie. “You need to start going to bed earlier or something; you come home every night exhausted.”

Sonic let out a sheepish laugh. “Yeah. I guess school wore me out, and now juggling friends and running and all that is kinda a whole other enchilada, and I'm not catching up on any sleep.” His facial features screwed into an annoyed grimace. “It stinks. I liked the good ol' days, when school didn't happen and we didn't have to live all normal and stuff. I see why everybody's always so tired nowadays, though.”

“I dunno,” Tails shrugged, pausing his movie to turn his full attention to his friend, “I kinda like the chance to be normal. Not being in the spotlight all the time, and of course no Eggman threat...”

Green eyes turned toward the ceiling again, distant and thoughtful. “Yeah, maybe. I kinda wish we could have that on-the-run life again. Just, maybe without Eggman.”

“Risking your neck for no reason?” Tails teased, reaching over to lightly punch the hero in the arm.

A laugh escaped Sonic's throat as he reached over to return the favor. “Dude, those days were the best! I'm definitely feeling an adventure kick right about now, man. Maybe we could go track down the Chaos Emeralds--you know how they always show up in all the dangerous and obscure places, and nobody's seen 'em for the last two years, anyway. It'll be fun!”

“Hm...” An adventure did sound appealing (though it was probably more fun if you actually enjoyed springing death traps), but the sensible part of Tails had to be allowed to take over. “It's probably best to leave them separated for now. Just in case somebody decides to pick up where Eggman left off.”

“... Yeah, you're probably right.” Sonic sighed and stretched his body out to full potential, suppressing a yawn. Then he languidly recollected his limbs and rose to his feet; “Think I'm gonna hit the sack a little early--see if that helps anything.”

“'K. Good night, bro,” Tails waved, turning back to his movie.

Sonic gave him a two-fingered salute; “G'night.” The speedster fled up the stairs in a matter of milliseconds, leaving Tails to his thoughts once again.

_Funny how I'm the younger one, and he's the one who can't stay up past his bedtime..._

His movie droning on to deaf ears, Tails frowned slightly. Here was that feeling again; for the second time that evening, Sonic's behavior was coming off unusual for no reason he could pinpoint. _Is this normal for a guy dealing with a crush?_ he found himself wondering. If so, the fox decided he wanted no part of it, ever. Love probably wasn't worth constant exhaustion.

~~~ 

June passed with little to show for it, as summer months tend to go. Sonic and Amy went out a few more times, which of course attracted some attention within the gang, but it was hard to even call the two a “couple,” because, really, there were almost no changes in the ways they treated each other. Amy was as wistful and clingy as ever, and Sonic still got red-faced and uneasy whenever she was around. In fact, the male hedgehog was slowly becoming more distant with her, and with everyone else in his life, without seemingly trying or noticing. Tails didn't like it, but he couldn't figure out what could be wrong. Sonic was certainly not giving anyone the cold shoulder, in the full sense of the term, yet this developing trait became obvious enough that Knuckles soon began to take notice, as well.

“I can't put a finger on it, really,” the echidna tried to explain when asked about it. “He's just... different. More moody, maybe. I don't know, maybe Amy's got something to do with it. Girls do weird things to us guys.”

Tails wanted to remind him that he was technically in the same boat, by those standards, but instead only enlisted Knuckles's help in keeping an eye on Sonic.

Their combined observations proved beyond much doubt that something was off. Things bothered Sonic where they wouldn't before, but only sometimes; it was difficult to determine how he would react to any given thing every day. He was jumpy, more so than usual, and he gave a distinct impression that he wanted to be left alone. Even on his seventeenth birthday, a day when he ordinarily would have spent the whole previous night running off his excitement, he was more tolerant than ecstatic about the little party Amy had put together for him. Whether they spoke of it or not, the team as a whole began to notice, as well--everyone, it seemed, but Sonic himself, which was the most disturbing part of the whole thing.

Finally, under what she considered to be a biased vote, Amy was deemed the one to directly approach him about it.

“Sonic... Can I ask you about something?” she asked carefully. She had come over specifically for this purpose, and Tails had worked hard to keep the elusive hedgehog in the house in hopes that Amy could work it out of him what was wrong. She had requested a talk with him, and he had only hesitated for a second before agreeing. Now they were seated in the living room, a short distance apart on the old sofa, and despite her choice of wording, Amy did not leave him time to refuse her. “You... You're acting like something's bugging you. You're not... You're not yourself.”

Sonic tensed, barely noticeably, and shifted casually. “Wait, what?”

“You... you...” The female hedgehog struggled to find words that wouldn't accidentally offend him. “You've been kind of... Please don't take this personally, but you've been acting all... touchy and... I dunno, you've been kind of all over the place.”

“... I... have?” Confusion was written all over his face.

“Yeah, a little bit. I've noticed, Tails noticed a long time ago--everybody's noticed it at some time or another.” Seeing that he didn't appear defensive or anything of the like--just genuinely puzzled--Amy let her queries become bolder. “You're not very happy lately. If something happens two days in a row, you react completely differently both times. And... and we're getting worried.”

“So you want to know if something's bugging me,” Sonic finished flatly, expression unreadable.

Amy nodded quickly. “It's just not like you at all, and I really do want to help if there's anything I can do.”

Sonic folded his arms and leaned back into the sofa cushions. “Jeez, you make it sound like I'm acting like a girl. No offense,” he commented without much emotion. Amy recoiled in shock, but he continued obliviously, “There's nothing wrong, not that I'm aware of, and even if there was, I could handle it myself. I don't need anybody telling me how to act.”

"Wh--" Deep under his schooled, emotionless face, Amy could read a discreet swirl of emotions--hurt, anger, annoyance, and defiance seemed to fight for control. Instead of desiring to reprimand him for his thoughtless words, Amy found herself more worried than before. But, to keep prying for information he wasn't giving, and partially since his words did strike home a little too hard, she reprimanded him anyway.

“Sonic! How dare you insult me?” she demanded, glaring at him and jerking her pointer finger in his direction. “All I'm trying to do is help! That's all Tails is trying to do, too, and all _you_ keep doing is pushing him away!”

Slowly but surely, the little flames of anger in Sonic's eyes picked up in intensity. “Look, if I hurt anybody's feelings, then I'm sorry, but even if there was something wrong, it's nobody's business but mine. But I'm fine, got it?”

“No, you're not fine! Look at yourself; you're sleeping instead of running and exploring, you're grouching at your friends, you're picking a fight with me... How is that anything like the Sonic we all know and love?” This was turning into less of an act and more of a real show of anxiety and irritation; Amy hadn't intended to start a for-real argument, but it was too late to stop it now.

“As far as _I_ know, everything's just fine,” Sonic quickly shot back, tone growing more heated by the word. “If you think you can just come on in here and start yelling at me how I'm not being a good enough friend for ya, then you're wrong. Just quit worrying about me for once, okay? I'm totally fine, and you're not convincing me otherwise!”

At the corner of her vision, the briefest flash of gold caught Amy's eye, and suddenly the details Tails had given her came back to mind; running the conversation through her mind again gave her enough reason to sigh in defeat. “... Fine.”

Her soft answer turned away wrath as Sonic blinked, misunderstanding once again taking over. He squinted at the female hedgehog as if he wasn't sure he'd heard her right. “'Fine'? That's it? Just, 'Fine'?”

Tails slipped into the room at that moment; he kept his head high, but his ears and tails drooped in telltale signs of underlying shame. “Yeah,” he answered for Amy, holding up a small stick-shaped object Sonic instantly recognized as a voice recorder. “Fine. Because you need to hear yourself right there.”

Though he was obviously initially dismayed, Sonic's slack jaw tightened in embarrassment as he heard his own voice--the entire conversation--played back for him with every harsh word and every loud syllable. When it was finally over, he sighed loudly and buried his muzzle in a pillow that was conveniently placed on the other side of him from his friends.

“And that wasn't even a real argument,” mumbled Tails into the silence.

Sonic buried his face just a little further into the pillow. “... Sorry,” came his muffled, low apology. “That was... wasn't...”

“Sonic...” Tails wedged himself into the spot between the two hedgehogs on the couch and gingerly laid his hand on his dear friend's turned shoulder. “We're here for you, just like always. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but if there's something bugging you, then... I don't care what I'm doing, I'll drop it and listen anytime you want to talk. We can't help if you don't tell us what's going on.”

“Me, too!” Amy chimed in, reaching over Tails to copy his move.

Sonic let out a long breath, studying his friends out of the corner of his eye as they waited for him to respond. He remained perfectly silent for the longest minute any of them could remember, the perfect example of an indignant, stubborn teenager caught between telling the truth and ending up grounded for two years.

“... I haven't been sleeping that well, is all,” he finally admitted quietly.

Tails nodded sympathetically, relaxing in relief that they had at least gotten somewhere. “Okay, it's a start. Why not? You wouldn't go this secretive if that was all it was.”

Another forceful sigh. “I dunno. I just can't sleep. Can't shut down long enough. Some nights I'll go running for hours, and that helps, but by then it's almost morning and I gotta get up again. Other nights... Could be anything. Nightmares, tossing and turning forever... Nothing really _unusual,_ I guess, it's just...” He lifted his head to face his confidants once again and forced himself to finish his difficult confession. “I just don't feel that great in general, and... it's tough to explain.”

“And that's what's making you go all moody lately?” Tails asked for confirmation, some relief seeping into his voice without permission.

Sonic nodded slowly, like he hated himself for it. “That's all I can figure. I hate acting like this.”

“Wait, so you've been aware this whole time how rude you've been acting?” Amy interjected in surprise.

“Well, yeah.” Sonic shrugged, like he was stating the most obvious thing in the world. “It's not like I'm on drugs or anything. It's just kinda... in the aftermath, after I've already said it or done it. Y'know?”

Amy shook her head in disgust; “Oh, you have no idea.”

At this, Sonic diverted his gaze to the carpet nervously, a hint of red touching his cheeks. “Hey... I didn't mean what I said earlier, honest. I--sorry.”

Amy smiled gently at him. If Tails hadn't been between them, she probably would have hugged him; as it was, she reached for his hand to grasp it tightly. “Aw, it's okay. We'll do what we can to help you out, okay? Hopefully it'll never happen again, and we can get you back to normal and everything'll be just fine.”

For the first time, Sonic returned the hopeful smiles of his friends. “Yeah, that'd be awesome. Thanks, guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... It starts off kinda slow, I know. It'll pick up next chapter, I promise!
> 
> Like and comment if you read and let me know what you think. Updates should be pretty regular, but I am a freshman in college, so my schedule and energy levels vary from week to week. Certainly subscribe and keep an eye out for updates very soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Amy's solution for Sonic's sleeping issue was to try everything.

“If you've heard of it, try it, all at once,” she explained authoritatively. “Go on a nice long run as soon as you can after dinner, then go nuts. Warm glass of milk, light stretching, avoid watching TV or checking your phone, count sheep, read the book of Leviticus, whatever. This sounds pretty serious, so the best way to get it to work is to try it all at once.”

Both Sonic and Tails shied away from the method right at first.

“Seems kinda... over the top,” Sonic managed to say after a few moments of trying to put his uncertain thoughts into words.

“Maybe you should start with one thing at a time,” Tails suggested quickly before Amy, whose face had darkened, could start a fight. “Try a different method every night. If we run out of ideas, then we'll try them all at once. Compromise?”

The two hedgehogs exchanged miffed glances, then simultaneously conceded with matching nods. “Sounds fair,” Sonic added for good measure.

That night, he tried the stretching technique on random selection, which he was pleased to discover actually felt rather soothing after running a few hundred miles. But after tossing and turning for a while, he only slept for a couple of hours before finding himself up and antsy again. When he finally heeded the sun's wake-up call and stumbled into the kitchen, where found Tails awake and alert, nibbling on cold cereal for breakfast, he grumbled without greeting, “Got any other ideas?”

Twin tails drooped slightly. “Aw, it didn't work?” As the hedgehog shook his head, Tails shoved his bowl toward the middle of the table and stood up to stretch. “Well, I hadn't thought about this, but Cream called yesterday. She wanted to know if we could go to the fair with her and her mom today. Maybe all you need is an excuse to drop out for a while.”

Sonic raised an eye ridge with as much curiosity as he'd ever had so early in the morning. “So we go hang out with the gang for the day and I get so tired I can't _not_ sleep like a log tonight? Sounds doable.”

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Tails hated to be so careful with the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog, but as weird and backwards as such caution felt, he didn't want to make things worse on any front; not only would it ruin a day of fun, but it would also likely discourage Sonic further.

A sly smile slipped onto Sonic's face. “Hey, now, this is me we're talking about. If I can handle Egg Dragoons and Time Eaters, I can handle a day at the fair when I'm a little under the weather.”

Only hesitating for part of a second, Tails nodded. “Okay, then. I'll call Cream and tell her we'll be there. Just...” He glanced down at his bowl shyly after a moment of loaded looks between the two. “... Never mind. You better grab a bite to eat; we're meeting them half an hour from now, I think.”

As he ran upstairs to unhook his cell phone from its charger, the ten-year-old mentally kicked himself for his conduct. _I'm not going to hover,_ he firmly decided. _That's his job, to worry about me--not the other way around._

~~~

The day passed in a flurry of fair fun. Along with Sonic and Tails, Cream had invited Amy, Knuckles, Silver, Blaze, Marine, Rouge, and the Chaotix to come, and they spent the whole morning as a group, riding the more popular rides before the weather made the long lines unbearable. At one point, Vanilla took the youngest four to ride the smaller rides geared toward children; the teenagers, meanwhile, were left to their own measures, with as much freedom as Vector, the self-proclaimed chaperone, allowed. Between heckling the crocodile for his tight leash and enjoying the activities he did approve, it was easy to forget anything had ever been wrong.

“Hey, Vector,” Silver called at one point shortly after the split-up, “Rouge and I want to try that ride over there-–” He pointed at one of the larger roller coasters in the near distance--“the Turbo Jet 2000.”

“Hang on. Group's gotta stay together,” Vector reminded them for what felt like the thousandth time. He turned to the herd of ducks behind him, the majority of whom had to resist the urge to roll their eyes, and asked, “Anybody else for the Turbo 3000?”

Not bothering to note the reptile's flub, Knuckles took the opportunity to shove Sonic lightly to get his attention; “I'll do it if you will, Blue.”

A flicker of surprise was quickly covered with a smirk as Sonic shouted, “Oh, it's so _on,_ Red!” The two started to dash away, but Vector skillfully grabbed one arm in each hand, ignoring their startled complaints; “Read my lips, boys: _stay with the group.”_

“I, uh...” Blaze straightened her posture and cast her eyes back downward, away from the apex of the tall coaster, before stating, “I think I'll pass on this one.”

Espio nodded; “And I will stay with her,” he informed coolly, “to ensure that no one will be left alone.”

Silver frowned slightly, but snapped back to normal when he caught Vector's inquisitive eye. “Uh, are you sure, Blaze? It's not that high...”

As the blushing cat and hedgehog duo launched into what could only be described as a polite argument, Amy made her presence known to Sonic by latching onto his arm and whispering, “You doing okay?”

He gave her a sort of half smile. “Yeah, I'm good.”

“Hm?” Suddenly, Knuckles was beside them, trying to be serious but unable to hide the beginnings of a smug smirk. “You two want a minute?”

“Ha, no,” Amy scoffed, visibly surprising both of the boys. “I just asked if he wanted to sit with me.”

“And I said I was sitting with you,” Sonic finished, simultaneously completing the story and speaking what he considered to be the truth. “Maybe Amy can sit in front of us or behind us or... something.”

Amy shrugged, expertly masking her disappointment. “I don't see much choice. I can't sit above you, right?”

All three snickered at the thought. Sonic took the moment while Knuckles was distracted to shoot Amy a grateful look. She smiled brightly back.

Five minutes later, the whole group, minus Blaze and Espio, was in the middle of the longest line in the park.

“I thought you thought roller coasters were boring, Sonic,” Silver commented curiously.

The addressed hedgehog shrugged. “I decided to take a different mindset. When I run, I'm in total control, but when I'm on a roller coaster, I'm not. So the roller coaster might be safer, but it doesn't really feel that way.” He looked up and waved enthusiastically when a train of cars full of screaming people raced by overhead. “It's a lot more fun when I think about it that way,” he finished like nothing had happened.

Silver nodded. “That's pretty profound.”

“Yeah. I have my moments.” The blue hero's smirk returned; “But they're few and far between. I bet I can scream louder than you can.”

“Oh, yeah? I hope you've been practicing,” quipped Silver with a matching grin.

“Easy. I'll just scream like you did when you fell off the ski jumping ramp at the Olympics a couple years back.”

The whole group burst into laughter at the memory--except, of course, for Silver, who sputtered indignantly with cheeks as red as roses. “O-oh, you are so going down,” he finally declared, apparently no longer in the opinion that this was funny.

“Sure thing, dude,” snickered Sonic sarcastically, “whatever you say.”

~~~

After riding the same roller coaster three times in a row, the whole group reunited for lunch. Vector was so outraged by the prices of the food that he actually tried to haggle with the vendor, who gave in simply because the growing line was complaining of the increasing heat. The whole team celebrated the little victory with ice cream, which had been on the menu anyway but was given new significance by Charmy.

After lunch, the July heat drove them to the indoor activities. They observed the model trains in the plants and nature exhibit for a solid hour; Charmy, hyper on sugar by this point, mounted a surprised Sonic's shoulders and demanded him to chase the trains and not lose them, and the hedgehog needed little persuasion before they set to tailing the longest track in the building. Next came games; the girls played actual carnival games, coming away with some much-adored stuffed animal prizes, while the guys stayed in the air-conditioned arcade and bested each other at video games, with only a sense of pride and bragging rights over their friends to show for it. Cream even managed to get several of the gang to go with her through the art exhibit; the rest waited in the lobby, where they took turns standing in front of the cold air vents.

By early evening, the weather had cooled with the setting sun, leaving time for a few more rides. Since everyone was losing steam, however, the exciting rides were abandoned in favor of slower ones; the Ferris wheel was popular, especially when the nighttime lights display flickered on in the middle of the ride.

“Wow, look at the city, Amy!” Cream squealed, hands and face plastered against the glass windows of their car. “Look at all the lights! It's so bright!” At her side, Cheese let out a long “Chaoooo!” and copied her owner's movements with wide eyes and a huge grin.

“Hey, I can see the airport from here,” Tails pointed out, less jumpy than the rabbit but enjoying the ride nevertheless. “That's probably a good three miles away, which means the angle we must be at compared to it...”

“Look at the sunset!” Amy gushed as Tails rambled on cheerfully to himself. “I've never seen so many colors in the sky at one time! What do you think, Sonic?” She turned toward their fourth and final passenger only to let out a little gasp.

Tails jumped; “What? What's wrong?” When he turned as well, his blue eyes widened and his words died on his tongue, for instead of enjoying the view, Sonic had fallen asleep in his seat; his arm acted as a cushion for his head against the cold window sill, and his floppy ears and limp quills indicated how far gone he really was.

“It worked,” the young fox breathed in disbelief. “He's actually asleep.”

Cream let out a noise of bewilderment. “What worked? Shouldn't we wake up Mister Sonic before he misses the whole ride?”

Tails shook his head, stuck in a state of wonder and unable to respond for a moment. “We'll--we'll wake him up before we get to the ground again, save him some dignity in front of the guys. He needs it more than you know.”

It turned out that Sonic wasn't the only one who was worn out. Marine was practically asleep on her feet, stumbling around in a sleepy daze, and Vector emerged from the car he'd been riding in carrying a snoozing Charmy on his shoulder. Though no one else had given in quite so far, the day was officially declared over shortly after that. Just to show how absolutely awake he was, Sonic even offered to see the girls home safely; Silver, deciding this wasn't a bad idea, took Blaze and Marine off his hands with haste, and Rouge assured them that she could take care of herself, so he and Tails were left with the Rabbits and Amy.

“Thank you so much for coming with us, everyone,” Cream enthused once they were back on home turf, her chocolate-colored eyes bright despite her lack of leftover energy. “The fair is always more fun when you have friends with you.”

“Friends and frenemies,” Sonic joked, setting off a round of laughter. “But hey, yer welcome, Cream. It was a ton of fun.”

“Yeah! We should totally do it again sometime!” Amy added cheerfully.

“We will,” Vanilla assured, “just sometime after we're all recovered.”

“Can't eat that much junk food every day of the week,” agreed Tails.

Once goodbyes were said, the three that were left quickly became two as Tails took to the skies with a sly smile at his surrogate older brother. “I'll leave you two some time alone,” he said simply before flying out of sight faster than Sonic could retort.

“Come on, Sonic, my house isn't too far from here.” So saying, Amy pulled Sonic's wrist gently so that he tripped after her, more exhausted than ever now that they were away from the luminous city lights. He allowed himself to be pulled along until he was even with Amy, and soon they were in the sparse neighborhood that held the female hedgehog's home, just outside the border of the forest.

“I bet you'll sleep with the rest of us tonight, huh?” she commented lightly in hopes of breaking the silence.

“Heh, yeah, no doubt.” He cast her a sideways glance; even in the dim light and prominent shadows, his muzzle was a little pinker than it should have been. “By the way, thanks for... for not bringing that up in front of Knuckles earlier. Or any of the guys. It's not even that big a deal--”

“It is to you,” Amy broke in firmly, “so what was the point of saying anything? You did fine today, though; maybe we're just overreacting to the whole thing and you'll be just fine by tomorrow.”

A little smile turned the corners of Sonic's mouth. “Yeah. At this point, I'm just looking forward to collapsing and crashing for a while.”

“Me, too.”

They had arrived at Amy's home by now, and for a moment an awkward silence fell over the two as they stood on the porch and waited for one or the other to say something. Finally, Sonic shifted his weight from one foot to the other nervously and coughed; “I better get on back to Tails's place. It's late.”

Amy nodded. “Okay. See you later, Sonic.”

“G'night.” For a second, he lingered as if unsure what to do, but he eventually sprinted off, not quite full speed but still fast enough to get him home quickly.

Initially disappointed, Amy scolded herself for expecting anything different. Yes, he had clearly had something else in mind, but in all reality, the important thing here was that he would hopefully feel better in the morning, and as soon as he was happy, she would be, too. Love professions could wait just a little longer.

~~~

The shadows in Tails's room were different when he woke up the next morning. His first thought was that he needed to make sure he'd moved the _Tornado_ inside in case it rained, but when he sat up, the hands of the clock on the nightstand next to him changed his mind. “Whoa...” This was the latest he'd slept in since... a long time ago. And that was saying something, considering how lazy things had gotten lately. He stepped up to the window to open the curtains and let in the lovely sunny day before leaving his room and shutting the door as quietly as he could, knowing that Sonic, if he'd stayed here last night, might still be asleep.

 _... Unless he didn't sleep at all._ His memory clicked, and he changed direction to move toward Sonic's room. The door was cracked open slightly, and there was no sign of the cobalt hero within the little room. Telling himself not to worry, Tails headed downstairs, figuring that Sonic simply hadn't slept in as late as he had. Surely yesterday's exciting events had been enough to coax him into a good night's sleep...

When he landed on the ground floor, he cut through the living room on his way to the kitchen, but he was taken aback upon seeing a blue figure stretched out on the couch. Clearly, Sonic was still out like a light; his arms and legs were sprawled out every which way, and a book on his chest was set to slide off at the slightest movement. This excited Tails; he carefully removed the book without touching the hedgehog, and he was overjoyed to find that it was a Bible. The first page of the book of Leviticus was creased due to the overnight mistreatment, which meant that not only had Sonic fallen asleep almost immediately, but he had also stayed asleep all night with the book still on his chest. Tails could have shouted with excitement.

He didn't let himself make a noise, however, because Sonic stirred at the gentle sound of rustling pages. Tails lowly spoke his name, but all the hedgehog did was bring his arms and legs in and turn over, falling back asleep on his stomach with one hand hanging off the couch. The kitsune smiled wryly and left the room, taking the Bible with him. It wouldn't hurt to let him sleep a little longer if he wanted to.

It was much too late for breakfast, so Tails disappeared into the workshop, nibbling on a piece of bread, to spend a little time on his latest project. When he reappeared an hour and a half later, Sonic was still conked out, having done nothing save for tossing and turning a bit more. For a moment, the ten-year-old debated on whether or not to wake him up, but he quickly came to the conclusion that if Sonic wished to sleep tonight, as well, then he'd have to get up sooner or later.

“Sonic...” he murmured, reaching out to jar his shoulder. Surprising warmth seeped through his glove on contact, and he yelped a bit before he could stop himself. His excitement turned to concern with speed like the flip of a switch, and his voice rose in urgency; “Yikes! Sonic, wake up! Are you feeling okay?”

This time, Sonic groaned as he rolled over slowly, and he cracked open one emerald eye in an attempt to focus on Tails. “Huh... Wha?”

Now Tails was definitely concerned. Sonic's eyes were red and bloodshot, and he moved as little as possible despite how uncomfortably warm he must have felt. “Sonic, are you okay? You don't look good at all...”

“... N-no...” Again, Sonic moaned, curling in on himself protectively and shutting his eyes again. “I don't--”

“Stop, never mind. I can already tell.” _Maybe this is what everything's been leading up to,_ Tails mused frantically. _Weeks of not sleeping and moodiness... He must have worn himself down._ “Obviously you're running fever. Are you... nauseous?”

“Kinda...” The hedgehog's breath was coming in little gasps now; Tails guessed “kinda” translated to “very” in the Sonic dictionary.

Tails had to dig around for several minutes under the kitchen sink to find the ancient artifact that was their old “bucket,” a special plastic container Sonic had bought way back when Tails had been three and had gotten sick to his stomach at least once a month. It hadn't been used in years and was covered in cute little hippopotamus and giraffe stickers, but he didn't want to make Sonic have to get up should the need arise.

 _So much for dignity,_ he thought wryly to himself as he laid the bucket on the coffee table well within the patient's reach. He cleared his throat, unsure what else to do; “Do you think you can handle some medicine? At least to get that fever down?”

“I dunno...” It was all Sonic could do to talk at this point, and Tails decided there was no choice; he all but forced his friend to sit up long enough swallow the medicine.

“At least I'm not making you take the liquid stuff,” he persuaded. “That stuff would make you puke for sure.”

But as time ticked by, nothing changed. Sonic miraculously didn't give in to the strong urge to throw up, but his fever stubbornly stayed put at nearly a hundred and three degrees. His shivering worsened to visible levels no matter how many blankets Tails found lying around to give him, and that was enough to officially transform the young kitsune's insignificant misgivings into growing fears.

“Are you feeling any better?” he would ask every five or ten minutes, to which every time Sonic would communicate that no, he wasn't. Eventually he fell asleep again (or passed out; Tails wasn't sure there was much difference at this point), and the kitsune tried his best not to panic. This was too strange, and for all his intelligence, he knew nothing any other ten-year-old didn't concerning health problems.

He ran through a list of contacts in his head as he desperately tried to locate his cell phone, which had been discarded in his rush to get into bed the night before. He wasn't ready to submit Sonic or himself to the horrors of the doctor's office quite yet; he had always preferred to treat both injury and illness at home as opposed to taking advantage of the medical system. Therefore, the second he found his phone, he dialed the next number he thought of.

“Yeah, what?” came the gruff answer after what felt like the longest period of ringing ever.

“Knuckles,” Tails breathed, scarcely believing the echidna had actually answered. “I think something's really wrong with Sonic... like, really, really wrong.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... much... _dialogue..._ Oh, and if there's any misleading medical information in this, then my apologies; I don't know any more about the human body than the average Joe, and I'm having to make up a lot of stuff between Sonic being a made-up creature and all this Chaos theory changing the game. Some things are completely made up; others are just semi-educated guesses. They are all important to the plot.

One thing led to another, and eventually Amy, Cream, and Vanilla all followed Knuckles to the workshop. They all convened in the living room; Knuckles and Tails settled on the floor in front of the couch to make up for the spots Sonic took up stretched out above them, which left the remaining chair and love seat for the ladies. On request, Vanilla was filled in on every strange thing that had happened recently concerning the comatose Sonic, notably his mood swings and his sleepless nights.

“I can't help but connect them in my mind,” the rabbit explained thoughtfully, consciously keeping her voice low. “I want every piece of the puzzle before I try to put it together.”

“Why don't we just take him to the hospital and let the doctors figure it out?” Amy demanded, her worry for her crush lessening her patience. She caught herself speaking loudly and lightly gasped; Sonic didn't stir, but she bit her lip in shame anyway.

To the surprise of all present, it was Knuckles who answered her, calmly and without raising his voice; “I told Tails already, I have an idea as to why this is happening, but it's not something they can handle. That's why I brought you and the Rabbits here in the first place; I want to hear everyone else's opinions first. It doesn't look like he's in any immediate danger, so don't go telling me we're wasting time.”

For obvious reasons, no one understood the echidna's reasoning. Nevertheless, Vanilla sighed and folded her hands, surveying the group of worried teenagers. “All right, then. Does anyone have a suggestion?”

“Flu?” Amy guessed, earning a facepalm from Knuckles.

“Any weak medicine would do the trick if it was that simple.”

“Food poisoning?” Tails suggested more readily, sitting up straight. “We were at the fair all day, after all. I mean, who knows where all that stuff's been?”

Amy folded her arms and pointed out, “We would all be sick, then. We all ate the same things yesterday; I didn't even see him sneak in an extra chili dog anywhere.”

“But his system works a little faster than most people's. We just might not feel sick yet, although if it was really this fast-acting, overnight really should have been enough time for any of us...” Tails trailed off as he realized the flaws in his own circular reasoning.

“Keep it in mind, anyway,” Knuckles advised gruffly. Amy muttered something along the lines of “pointless.”

“Perhaps he's somehow gotten some kind of incommunicable disease,” mused Vanilla.

Cream, who had situated herself on the sofa's armrest, looked up from where she was gently stroking Sonic's quills to comb his damp, sweaty fur, confused; “What's that mean, Mama?”

The elder rabbit smiled patiently at her daughter. “One that can't be passed around, dear. A cold is called a _communicable_ disease because you can give the germs to someone else and make them sick. It's another word for 'contagious.'”

“Oh, okay.” Satisfied, the eight-year-old returned to her grooming, humming softly.

Tails nodded stiffly. “I guess that could be it; it's a pretty broad category, though. If that's our only guess, we'll have to take him in.”

A heavy silence ensued, mental images of such a course of action causing each to cringe internally; none of them wanted to be the one to drag an unwell Sonic the Hedgehog to the hospital.

Eventually, convinced no one else had any better ideas, Knuckles broke the quiet by clearing his throat; “Okay, get down to the basics, here, Tails. Assume Vanilla is right when she says the not sleeping and all is connected to this. I want you to clarify exactly what's been wrong with Sonic lately--not just today, but ever since all this started. I wasn't around for much of this, either, so I want the exhaustive list.”

“Well, okay...” Tails counted off on his fingers each item as he thoughtfully spoke them. “He hasn't been sleeping well, he's having a hard time controlling his emotions which may or may not be connected to not sleeping, he's always tired, he's running a really high fever that won't go down, and he's nauseated but hasn't actually thrown up yet. That's pretty much it, that I know of.”

Knuckles nodded in satisfaction. “All right. Now let's see if we can break those down. Why isn't--wasn't--he sleeping? I mean, obviously he's not having much trouble now, but...”

The fox bit his lip, wracking his rather frenzied brain for the details of the right conversation--had it really only been the day before yesterday? It felt like so much longer than that, now. “Uh... He said he was just too full of energy. He couldn't shut down long enough to conk out.”

“Why is that?”

“... Because he just couldn't? I dunno, how am I supposed to know?” Tails demanded, glaring in frustration at his lack of answers to the echidna's seemingly unimportant questions. Something in him did not like the fact that Knuckles was obviously dancing around something instead of being his usual direct self, and for once the fox wished he would forget tact and logic and just spill his thoughts like he normally did.

Knuckles shook his head and tried not to let the kitsune's annoyances affect him. “Okay, okay. We'll say he couldn't sleep because whatever it is that controls adrenaline--I said that right, right?--is working overtime for no reason.” He hadn't meant to stutter, but he really didn't know much about bodily anatomy; he was currently hinging his theories on the hope that the information he garnered would back up his rather tentative theory. “Now, what causes a fever?”

“A lot of things can,” Vanilla jumped in knowingly, “but generally it's the body's way of killing bacteria and sending more blood to fight an infection; it's working harder, so that's why it makes the person warm and tired.” She blushed at the sudden, surprised attention afforded her by the younger Mobians around her; “I took a year of nursing in college before deciding to be a teacher instead.”

But Tails, mind gears moving at near top capacity, had already moved on. “Wait a second, there's a connection there. Even though they're usually only connected when there's a danger, they're connected here. They're both the result of a stress of some kind.”

A glint of excitement lit up Amy's jade eyes. “Miss Vanilla,” she addressed hopefully, “do you know what causes feelings and emotions to change?”

“No, dear,” Vanilla sighed, “I'm sorry. You'd have to talk to an endocrinologist, most likely.”

“What's that, Mom?” Cream piped up out of the blue once again. Now she was carefully smoothing out the little mound of blankets that had been provided for Sonic over the course of the morning, with Cheese helping her with corners she couldn't reach. The solemn group had to smile a little at how hard she was working to make him comfortable, completely oblivious to the conversation filled with big, serious words that spelled trouble for the hero in front of her.

“I'll explain later, dear,” Vanilla told her quickly. Turning back to Knuckles, she said, “I think I understand what you're saying, Knuckles. You're saying that everything is connected to some kind of stress on his body, right?”

“You know...”

All heads whipped around at the sound of the familiar voice; somehow, the breathless words injected light into the dim topic, and every muscle relaxed, if just a little bit. “Sonic!” Amy exclaimed happily.

Sonic half-smiled at them, emerald eyes half-veiled. “I like... how you're talking about me... like I'm not here,” he joked between breaths, causing a little laugh to circulate the group.

“Well, we might be onto something,” Tails told him, relief flooding his voice. He twisted around to face his brother, still sitting on his knees. “Are you feeling any better?”

Sonic closed his eyes again, but his ears were still perked up a little in alertness, with emphasis on “little.” “Bleh... No...”

“All right, so nothing's changed with rest,” Knuckles concluded. Subconsciously, the group shifted to include Sonic in the circle of conversation as the guardian continued. “Now the only variable here is the big one--that his fever won't go down. Why do you suppose that is?”

Less tense than before, Tails raised his hand like a school child. “Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure of this, but I think most of the time medicine kind of takes over the body's functions. If there was a germ, it would move in to kill it more quickly. I'm not sure how... But if that's not happening, then there's gotta be something else going on.”

“Right. So if the fever won't go away, then either there's nothing for the medicine to do, or something's preventing it from doing anything at all,” deduced Knuckles when his younger friend broke off. “Obviously something's wrong, so what could be strong enough to prohibit medicine, cause such a stress in the first place, and cause nutty mood swings?”

Amy threw her hands in the air with an annoyed huff and a glare tossed at the eighteen-year-old. “Knuckles, how on Mobius are we supposed to know–”

“The Chaos Emeralds,” Sonic interrupted suddenly, stunning everyone into a momentary silence.

Understanding dawned on Tails's face almost immediately as Knuckles nodded his consent. “The Chaos Emeralds... Of course! But...” His expression fell again as another thought hit him; “No one's seen them for months--going on two years now. They couldn't have done anything.”

Knuckles shook his head. “That's where my theory comes in.”

“This'll be good,” Sonic teased with a devious smirk.

“Pipe down, Blue.” Knuckles's fists clenched slightly. “It's you I'm trying to help, here.”

Sonic said no more, leaning back and allowing Cream to continue her soothing fur grooming. Amy watched the pair with a hint of jealousy hidden just out of sight.

“Anyway...” Knuckles forcibly cleared his throat and returned to his point; “What I'm saying here is that because Sonic hasn't interacted with the emeralds in a long time... That's the reason he's down like this.”

“... Elaborate?” Amy requested flatly, mirroring the blank looks of everyone in the room.

Knuckles leaned back in his seat with reasonable confidence in his once-shaky theory. “I read about this on Angel Island a long time ago; I didn't pay it any attention at the time because Eggman was coming up with killer schemes every other week and it seemed like he'd be going forever, or at least until we were all dead and it wouldn't matter anymore. But here we are--Eggman's gone, Sonic's barely seventeen, and lo and behold...”

“Focus,” warned Amy impatiently.

“All right, fine,” the guardian eyerolled. “Here's what I'm thinking. You used the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Super Sonic a lot, right, Sonic?”

Without opening his eyes, Sonic murmured, “Yeah. Every other week, like you said.”

“Right. We all know the Chaos Emeralds do a lot when they transform a person. That's why they scatter after being used; their energies are depleted from all that use and they need time to recharge. When you use them, they heal you, strengthen you, and protect you, sometimes all at once, like with Super forms. In essence, they mask the effects of whatever normally goes on--that'd be pain or discomfort or whatever--and allow you to do things, take things you normally couldn't do. They also channel your emotions as fuel; in essence, they offer a form of control over them.”

“Wait...” Tails held up one hand, blue eyes wide with fearful recognition as the pieces fell together in his mind. “Are you saying what I think you're saying?”

“Depends on what you think I'm saying,” the echidna shrugged.

Tails took this as a signal to speak, which he almost didn't. The words, to him, sounded worse than they were; they were subjective, demeaning words he would have never used to describe Sonic on any plane before.

“You're saying...” He tried to swallow a lump in his throat with some difficulty. “The Chaos Emeralds acted like a really strong stimulant--they stimulated him and enhanced his body's activities. And since he used them so many times, he got a little too used to the effects they had on him.”

Knuckles nodded silently, confirming the fox's fears--which were no longer just his, if the looks on the girls' faces were anything to go by. “Is there a word for that that's more pronounceable than the ancient echidna word?”

“A dependency, or an addiction,” Tails rattled off automatically. “Sonic literally became addicted to Chaos energy without knowing it.”

“Right. So now, he's quit cold turkey with the emeralds, since Eggman hasn't been around to give him a reason to use them, and his body can't get the same effects without them. What we might be seeing here is him trying to get the same energy rush and high-power feeling using just his own energy.”

“Withdrawal,” Tails and Sonic muttered simultaneously. Amy's face drained itself of all color, and Vanilla bit her lip. Cream's eye ridge raised in confusion once again, but this time she refrained from asking questions.

Then, a thought struck Tails, and it escaped without a second thought; “But wait, it's never happened before, and it's been a year and a half since we even saw the emeralds last. I mean, Eggman was never dormant for that long, but why did it take so long to kick in?”

“He went for months without it sometimes, remember?” Knuckles reminded. “When Eggman would go dormant and cook up something really big. He can take shorter longer periods of time, if you know what I mean. This has probably been building slowly for the last several months, and it just started to become noticeable this last month or so.”

The fox shook his head in wonder. “I never would have thought of that in a million years if I wasn't seeing it right now. But it makes sense. Maybe when you slept all the way through last night, Sonic, the suppressed energy from you not running or anything just built up until you couldn't take it anymore, and this happened.”

“Well, how do I make it _stop?”_ Sonic's voice was even quieter than before, and his cheeks had lost their previous bright red color when everyone turned to face him again. He was stiff and still, barely moving enough to breathe and speak. “Cuz I'm kinda... kinda miserable over here...”

“Oh, honey...” Suppressed motherly instincts overcame Vanilla at last, and she stepped over to the couch to rest her hand on his forehead as tenderly as if he were her own son. He didn't resist her cool touch. “I'll get you a wet washcloth or something,” she told him before slipping out of the room.

“What should we do, then?” Tails reiterated worriedly. “Sonic can't just lie there and moan for a couple weeks until his body decides he can live without the emeralds; all kinds of horrible things could happen!”

“I know, I know,” Knuckles growled, trying not to appear too irritated. Unfortunately, he had reached the end of his scope of knowledge, and he didn't like that he had not a single clue what to do now that they had some idea what was wrong. “What do people down here usually do for this kind of thing?”

A hesitation-filled moment passed before Amy spoke up. “Well, most of the time, whatever the person is addicted to is something bad and they really need to stop anyway--things like alcohol and drugs. They'll usually just quit; there's therapy involved, sometimes time in the hospital, all that stuff. But I don't think we can take that route this time. I mean, look!” She nodded toward Sonic, who appeared to be trying to go back to sleep in order to avoid an oncoming nausea attack. “Dealing with a fever like this for days on end might do some permanent damage! Not to mention if he can't eat or drink anything without bringing it back up, he might get dehydrated, or worse!”

“Amy, dear,” Vanilla quickly admonished as she reentered the room with the promised wet washcloth, “don't get too worked up in the 'what ifs.'”

“That's right,” Cream chirped, eyes bright with innocent faith, “I just know that you'll find a way to make sure Sonic's okay. That's what friends are for, right?”

Tight smiles found their way onto the faces of the rabbit's friends. “What would we do without you, Cream?” Amy complimented before she wrapped the child in a comforting hug.

Vanilla knelt next to the sick hedgehog and encouraged him to lift his head a little to let her maneuver the cloth around the back of his neck. Sonic wasn't wild about moving, yet he stubbornly placed every ounce of effort he had into obeying without vomiting; thankfully, Vanilla was quick and deft, and such an incident never came to pass.

“Now you rest, dear,” she told him. “We'll move so we don't bother you.”

“M'kay...” Already, Sonic was half unconscious, basking in the relief the cloth brought him, and Vanilla shepherded the rest of the gang into the kitchen as he gave in to sleep's invitation with amazing ease.

“The most obvious thing to do,” Knuckles decided lowly as he fell heavily into a chair at the table, “is to go find the emeralds and let him use them like always.”

“But then the same thing will happen again in a few months,” Amy argued. She flopped down into a chair opposite the echidna, passing a halfhearted glare over toward him. “We can't just keep finding the emeralds every couple of years for the rest of his life, and besides, who wants to be sick like this all the time?”

“What about using only a few emeralds?” Tails suggested suddenly. All eyes were drawn to him, but he hardly noticed for being deep in thought. “Since he just quit cold turkey, like you said, then maybe we can kinda... wean him off, for lack of a better term. We start with six this time, and he can use fewer emeralds each time until he doesn't need them anymore. It'll have to happen a few more times, but he won't be completely dependent on them for the rest of his life. And, since we know what to look for now, we can catch it and treat it earlier in the future.”

Knuckles crossed his arms loosely, mouth in a firm line and eyes downcast. “At any rate, I want to test this thing, first. We're working off a lot of assumptions here; we're assuming all those factors we were talking about are connected, and we're guessing at what's causing them. If we spend several days on a wild goose chase, I want to make sure the emeralds will actually make a difference, and we've got the right diagnosis. If we're wrong and we spend all that time finding the emeralds, then we've wasted a lot of time.”

Amy shrugged. “Okay, so we get one emerald and see what happens?”

“Pretty much. After that, if we're right, then we find at least five more.” The guardian's violet eyes drifted toward the living room doorway. “But there's risk in that, too. Using too few emeralds, if we are right, might make him worse. I don't know.”

“That's a chance we'll have to take,” declared Tails with as much resolve as he could have with his brother in such a spot. He was still taking all this in, trying to understand it all. Was this really Sonic's reward for all the lives he'd saved using the Chaos Emeralds? What had the hedgehog done to deserve having one of his greatest assets thrown back in his face? Knuckles's rather vague warnings only amplified his worries; what if they were wrong and things spiraled completely out of control? Would that, after every other ridiculously powerful thing he'd survived in the past, be enough to cost the hedgehog his life?

Amy's voice broke into his train of thought before it could jump any further off its track; “Okay, then. What should we do first?”

Knuckles nudged Tails with the heel of his hand, saying, “What we always do. Tails? Can you track any emeralds from here?”

“Oh! Yeah, sure I can.” The kitsune forcefully pulled himself away from his morbid imagination and gestured them all to follow. Everyone except Vanilla silently filed one by one through the back door and into the connected workshop. Tails flicked on the overhead lights and revealed the messy collection of just about anything a budding mechanic could dream of, including, in the middle of it all, the famous _Tornado,_ its scarlet-red paint shiny and displaying the generous maintenance it had received throughout its retirement from battle. On the opposite end of the room sat two computer monitors on a table filled with unrelated junk and projects; Tails pulled a sturdy shipping box up to this table, settled on it, and shoved the piles of stuff away from his workspace as his curious friends crowded around to watch.

“I haven't worked a lot on projects like this since Eggman was arrested and the emeralds disappeared, so we're kinda left with the same technology we had before,” he informed, consciously avoiding going into too much confusing detail as he woke up the machine and began deftly inputting commands. “I didn't get the chance to refine the signal or anything, but I've still got everything we used to have. I can tell you the continent it's on and give you a basic idea of where it might be, and once we get there, I can give you the general area within a few miles.” He leaned back with his hands folded nervously in waiting; “After that, Sonic or Shadow used to just kind of... sense it. Knuckles, that'll have to be your job; there's no way Sonic's up for this, and who knows where Shadow is right now.” Knuckles nodded slightly, setting his jaw determinedly.

A bright welcome menu splashed onto the screen, and Tails's fingers once again flew over the keys. “This first one will be the hardest since we're working without an emerald to start, and it'll probably take longer to find them than it used to without Sonic around to speed things up. He's not going, no matter how much he wants to.” Without ceasing his rapid typing, he craned his neck to look at Amy and Cream; “I'm counting on you girls to keep an eye on him. Keep us updated, too; we'll have our communicators.”

Cream nodded agreeably; Amy, on the other hand, creased her brows in displeasure. “Why can't I go?” she demanded. “Vanilla and Cream can handle Sonic between the two of them.”

“There's only two spots on the plane,” Knuckles firmly replied for the fox. “Any extra weight will just slow us down, and without Sonic that's the last thing we need.”

Amy's expression turned into an all-out enraged scowl. “Are you saying I'm just extra weight?!”

“Got it,” Tails broke in, having been oblivious to the argument. The two teens forgot their bickering and turned their attention to the red blob on the screen surrounded by the different colored lines of a road map. The little splotch of color was faded around the edges, indicating less chance of an emerald's presence.

“That's the northeast side of the continent,” Amy realized, pointing at a far corner of the map. “See, there's Empire City over there.”

Knuckles's voice was dangerously close to a whine as he questioned, “Is that really the closest one?”

Tails nodded and sighed in reluctant submission. “Yep. Looks like we've got our work cut out for us this time.”

Steeling his expression, Knuckles only took a second to think before he turned on his heel in the direction of the Tornado. “Well, no use standing around doing nothing. We've got an emerald to catch.”

Tails hesitated for a moment before standing. “Can you wait just a second? I'm gonna grab a cereal bar or something to eat while we're gone. I kinda forgot about lunch.”

“In that case, bring me one, too,” Knuckles nodded. He hoisted himself up onto the _Tornado's_ wing with a mighty thrust and sighed as he sent his dreadlocks flying into his face, while the fox found himself trailed by Amy and Cream back inside the house. They found Vanilla with her hands submerged in a sink full of soapy water with a stack of clean dishes already piling up on the kitchen counter next to her.

“I hope you don't mind, Tails, but if we're going to be helping, I need to be organized,” she explained.

 _She couldn't have possibly overheard our conversation, could she?_ Tails was a bit taken aback, yet he couldn't refuse the rabbit's rather forward offer of services at such a time as this. “No, no, it's fine. It needed to be done anyway. I just came in to grab the cereal bars out of the pantry to take with us, and then we'll be gone and you guys can do anything you need to.”

“Can we help, Mama?” Cream wanted to know, eagerly gesturing to herself and Amy. Cheese, strangely, was nowhere in sight.

Vanilla smiled and nodded approvingly. “Sure, sweetie; why don't you two start clearing the table?”

Many hands began to make light work as Tails snatched the desired cardboard box and ducked his way toward the quieter living room. There was Cheese, who was playing with snoozing Sonic's ear by gently lifting it, then giving a confused coo as she watched it flop back down.

“He's not going to do much that's interesting, Cheese,” Tails told the Chao wryly. He watched in amusement for a minute as the little blue creature persisted in the game. He sighed, “Listen, when he wakes up, can you tell him that we left and we'll be back soon?”

Cheese chirped happily and proceeded to dance in place, presumably communicating Tails's message. The kit smiled in spite of himself; “Or maybe I'll just tell him myself.”

He knelt down and leaned forward so he was just inches from the hedgehog's ear and whispered as quietly as he could, “I don't know if you can hear me, but Knuckles and I are going to find a Chaos Emerald. Hopefully everything'll be okay soon...” He faltered as he studied his best friend closely; despite his muzzle, red with fever, he looked peaceful and at ease; of course, he was asleep and couldn't feel any discomfort. Dreamland was a safe world, where anything undesirable could be rid of by simply waking up.

But when Sonic woke up, he would likely find no change and no comfort, and Tails wouldn't be here to help him through it like the hedgehog had done for him so many times throughout his life.

_I'm sorry..._

“... but we gotta get this done before we get there.” He grasped his brother's hand tightly for a second. “Hang in there, bro.”

Then he was gone, before he could change his mind, rushing out the door to meet Knuckles and embark upon the most important mission he'd ever taken.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Updated for the weekend, just as I said. Take that, finals week!
> 
> In more important news, this is where the plot settles in and things begin to take a turn for the worse...

A few hours of flight were completed in absolute silence. Knuckles's brows were creased in deep thought, and Tails knew better than to interrupt one of these pensive moods, especially when the echidna was balanced precariously on the wing, his least favorite position on the _Tornado._ The echidna would almost rather fly the plane himself, blindfolded, than stand on the wing. The young fox chose instead to focus on flying as steadily as possible, trying not to think too hard about Sonic and the sorry state they'd left him in.

Soon enough, Empire City lay stretched out underneath them, providing quite an eclectic view; the throngs of people, primarily humans, appeared from this high up like little more than clusters of black specks, like ants in their hill busily marching their own ways to accomplish their own goals. Even the high-reaching skyscrapers were no match for the little red plane, even as Tails gradually swooped lower to get a more accurate readout on his scans.

“What do you think, Knuckles?” the ten-year-old shouted toward the one on the wing. “Where should we go?”

Knuckles didn't respond for a few seconds. “... I don't think it's in the city.”

“Thank goodness,” Tails whispered to himself, his grip on the controls relaxing some.

“Turn a little to the left.” The guardian pointed in the indicated direction. “North, if we're still going northeast.”

Tails nodded. “We actually flew pretty much straight northeast. Turning north now. Hang on, Knuckles!”

Knuckles obeyed, kneeling down to grasp the metal handles strategically placed on the wing--strategically placed for Sonic, that is. The echidna could barely fit his significantly bigger hands through them, but he managed just before the plane tilted to the left.

Soon, they were over the suburbs, which were a different variety of anthill. The skyscrapers shortened into houses, which created mazes in the landscape through which the “ants,” which had grown into larger, more colorful cars, slipped right along. Then, almost as quickly as they had appeared, the suburbs began to thin out, and they encountered a patchwork quilt of farmland and wilderness.

“Getting warmer, I think...” Knuckles trailed off, unwilling to say more. This was usually Sonic or Shadow's gig; he could sense the Chaos Emeralds well enough, but he was more attuned to the Master Emerald's much stronger signature, and he wasn't used to sensing any of the emeralds the way the hedgehogs were. His emerald was almost never lost; he just felt its presence near him, rather than having to use that presence to find it. It made him feel slightly inadequate, that so much of his life revolved around the Chaos Emeralds and yet he couldn't use them to do what he needed to do.

Suddenly, he felt it. It was like they passed over a beam of energy spiking into the sky; there was no other way to describe it besides a very strong “gut feeling,”

“Here,” he announced without looking down, startling Tails. “We're right above it.”

Instead of showing the relief Knuckles expected, Tails groaned, “You've _got_ to be kidding.”

“Er, no...” Knuckles peered over the edge of the plane and immediately wished he hadn't. From this high up, the field below them looked like nothing more than a brown blob of dirt; unfortunately, the two boys knew they weren't so lucky. As Tails descended the plane, a foul scent wafted up to greet them, and they both fought to keep from gagging. The brown blob slowly came into focus to reveal shockingly enormous mountains of every undesirable thing--old, smelly shoes; broken television sets; worn-out, dirty clothes; and rotten food of all varieties were just the start.

“A landfill,” Knuckles deadpanned in disbelief. “And the emerald's probably been buried here for the last two years.”

“Did you bring a shovel?” Tails flatly asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“No.” Unhappy purple eyes rolled to meet the cheerful blue sky. “Sonic better appreciate this.”

~~~

The afternoon was beginning to make its exit when Tails and Knuckles approached the gates to the dump. The chain-link gates were wide open for now, but the sign on the fence proclaimed that the facility would soon be closing; so, rather than ask an employee for help, they just walked through as quietly and inconspicuously as they could. No one acknowledged their presence.

Inside, the sheer amount of trash was overwhelming. “No wonder all those environment people are going nuts over landfills,” Knuckles complained, wishing with all his being that it could be considered mature to hold his nose. “I don't know how they stayed in here long enough to get any statistics.”

Luckily, Tails was still young enough to justify pinching his sensitive nose to block out the stench. His cerulean eyes clouded over with despair as he gazed over their smelly surroundings. “Do you think we should just try to find another one?” he suggested slowly so as to be understood. “Another emerald? I mean, digging around in a city landfill is probably illegal. What if we get spotted?”

Knuckles shook his head hard enough to send his dreadlocks flying. “We don't have time. It took us four hours to get here; we can't just negate that and go gallivanting somewhere else. Sonic... We have to get this done as soon as possible.”

The fox didn't miss the hesitation in the echidna's ambiguous words, but reluctantly figured maybe he didn't want to know what else he had intended to say. “Okay, then. Lead the way.”

The next half hour was spent with the two cautiously picking their way between gigantic piles of garbage. Knuckles changed direction at seemingly random times, circling the heaps as he tried to feel the emerald's energy in them, and Tails followed like a duckling to its mother.

A sudden clang alerted the two to the entrance gate slamming shut; someone locked the two doors together and walked away, effectively trapping the unnoticed duo inside.

“Worse comes to worst, you fly us both over the fence,” Knuckles told his young partner in crime shortly.

The shadows grew longer as the sun fell behind the horizon, making careful walking the first and most difficult priority. Tails tried not to let his thoughts wander, but soon he found himself wondering how Sonic was doing. Had the girls gotten him to eat anything? Had his fever gotten worse? Had he finally thrown up? Was he coping with being trapped in the same house with Amy Rose?

“Let's try this one,” Knuckles said suddenly, jerking Tails out of his thoughts. The fox willingly consented, for Sonic wasn't the only one dealing with a case of wooziness by now, and he wanted nothing more than to leave this place.

Taking a deep breath, Knuckles dove into the pile, slowly at first so as to not make any noise to alert any potential guards to their presence. As soon as he had created something of a stable tunnel, he gave in to his ancestral instincts and burrowed quickly through the pile, breaking things all around him with cacophonous clinks and crackings. He was relieved to find that he'd picked the right spot; he could feel the Chaos Emerald's energy signature grow stronger the further he went. Now he just had to locate the needle in the haystack.

In minutes, a faint glow caught his eye, and he twisted to reach for it--a literal light at the end of the tunnel, considering how dark it was underneath all this trash. The glow intensified the closer he got, lifting his dwindling spirits. He shoved aside a moldy plastic something, held up an object that had been resting on it, and reached out to snag the green Chaos Emerald. Immediately upon his contact, a pleasant warmth shot up his arm and into his body, as if the emerald was happy to be back with its guardian. Any sense of lightheadedness from the overbearing scent of trash was gone in an instant, and he immediately started upward and forward, hoping this was as good a way out as any.

It was; he burst out of the pile, gasping for breath like he'd been swimming with a triumphant cry of “Got it!”

Tails started to react excitedly, but then the sound of rapid bangs met his ears as debris from Knuckles's grand re-entrance fell to the ground. Trash was suddenly falling from the top of the leaning mountain in a miniature avalanche which brought all manner of items crashing down all around them, sending Tails screaming and running for cover and Knuckles rushing to shove him out of the way. They tumbled to a stop behind another trash heap, each breathing raggedly under the terrific noise of the collapse.

When it finally stopped, the two cautiously peered around the corner to see the once-impressive mound now flat as a pancake five feet thick; dust and insects that had been upset by the crash formed a dark cloud over everything.

Tails drew in a relieved breath. “That was pretty hardcore.”

Knuckles didn't respond, for a faint noise had caught his attention. Tails's large ears perked up, as well; somewhere in the near distance, a low noise could be heard that could only be described as one thing.

“Think it's the neighbors' dogs?” Tails asked shakily.

“I wouldn't bet on that.” Knuckles craned his neck to look around and try to spot any landmarks. “The _Tornado's_ that way, right?” he asked with a nod.

“Y-yeah, I think so.”

The barking was getting louder. “Great,” Knuckles muttered, grabbing the kit's wrist to start him running alongside him, “now let's get out of jail free.”

“That was such a Sonic line, admit it,” Tails teased, unable to resist.

Before Knuckles could retaliate, the barking became suddenly sharper; the two risked a second's glance back to meet the eyes of three large, muscular dogs, baring their sharp teeth and growling low in their throats between hysterical barks.

Both intruders gave a startled shout and took off. They were forced to weave between piles of junk, which slowed them down so that it was impossible to lose their agile adversaries. Knuckles scooped up a conveniently-placed bone and threw it blindly backwards, but all that served to do was anger the dogs more and incite louder barks.

“There's the fence!” Tails yelped, pointing ahead of them at the chain-link fence topped with curls of barbed wire.

“Carry me!” Knuckles demanded.

“R-right!”

Tails almost couldn't get his helicopter namesakes to work properly through his fright; however, he strained his hardest and snatched Knuckles's hands, ascending in the same instant. He grunted at the effort; “You're heavier than Sonic!”

Knuckles chose not to respond to that, instead hiking his feet up to miss the barbed wire by inches. “Watch it, kid, you almost mutilated my legs!”

No sooner had they crossed the fence than Tails practically dropped his friend, then fell into a run propelled by his tails. Knuckles landed in a fancy somersault and came up beside him as the dogs barked and howled in defeat, tearing at the fence with their large claws but ultimately being forced to watch the intruders hop in the plane and fly away.

~~~

It was long past dark when Tails and Knuckles stumbled in the door. Only Amy and Vanilla acknowledged their presence by looking up; Cream was asleep in her mother's lap with Cheese softly snoring in her arms, and Sonic was unconscious on the couch almost exactly where they had left him. Amy jumped up anxiously; “Did you find it?”

Knuckles held up the green emerald affirmatively, grumbling, “You'd know these things if you'd pick up your communicator every once in a while.”

Amy folded her arms indignantly. “Oh, I'm sorry if I was never told I would even need it so I didn't bring it with me. Oh, wait...”

“No fighting, guys,” Tails broke in with a weary sigh. Cream lifted her head and blinked sleepily at the sound of the disturbance, and Cheese let out a soft coo as she tried to drift off again. “Let's just get this over with so Knuckles and I can shower, cuz I am _so_ not piloting a plane with him on the wing smelling like this.”

“Where _were_ you?” Vanilla gasped, fanning the boys' deplorable scent away from her face.

“Landfill,” Knuckles grunted, watching as Sonic's nose wrinkled and the hedgehog came to his senses with a cough.

“Ugh... who let rotten food into the house?”

“You owe me a _huge_ favor for going through two hundred years' worth of old trash outside Empire City for you,” Knuckles informed him irritably, thrusting the Chaos Emerald into Sonic's hand with an angered flourish. Sonic just blinked at him in groggy confusion.

“How were things here?” Tails changed the subject quickly.

Vanilla shook her head. “Nothing to report, sweetie. The girls and I got the kitchen spic-and-span and tried to just keep Sonic company for a while. Cream had to get Cheese out of his hair a few times; little darling thought his ear was a toy.”

Tails laughed, exchanging wry half-smiles with Sonic. “Yeah, that's what she was doing when we left. Any chance of this just blowing over, Sonic?”

Sonic rolled his eyes slightly. “I lived through today, apparently. I don't feel any better... if that's what you're asking.”

“Well, your attitude seems to have made a comeback,” muttered Knuckles, earning a lethargic glare from his hedgehog rival.

“Okay, okay,” Tails impatiently interrupted once again, “can we just try the emerald and see what happens?”

The scarlet guardian paused so briefly it was hard to tell if he'd done it on purpose. “Go for it. Just draw on its power like you usually do--the whole routine, positive thoughts included. Just... good luck.”

Sonic nodded, not questioning anything the echidna said, and let his eyelids fall shut. His grip on the emerald tightened. The tension in the room became nearly tangible as all eyes were glued to the hedgehog and the glowing gem, all souls sending up silent prayers. Nothing noticeable happened for a minute.

Then, suddenly, Sonic gasped, nearly choking as he did so. He fell back against the couch pillows with little to no control, and the emerald dropped from his limp fingers to the floor with a _thunk._ All present recoiled in shock and horror as he fought for breath like he'd been forced to hold it for years, quills soft and pliable against the pillows and body tense with concentration and limp with illness in the same moment.

“I...” He drew in as deep a breath as he could while under such intense stress, barely able to whisper the words he needed to say. “I... I _c-can't...”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rewrote most of the first part of this chapter just for y'all... last week, heheh. This semester is a bear! But I'm taking this excuse to ignore homework for a few minutes to bring you another chapter... So just what horrors have befallen Sonic now? Read on, dear reader, and find out!

Several things happened at once. Tails dove for the Chaos Emerald on the floor, then froze before he could finish his action by giving it back to Sonic and instead watched helplessly as his older brother struggled to breathe. Cream snatched drowsy Cheese closer to her in fright. Amy demanded to know what was wrong, her voice high-pitched with worry. Vanilla practically leaped forward to take charge, anxiously laying her hand on the traumatized hero's forehead with one hand and using the other to force his head up and help his labored breathing. “Don't panic, honey—Knuckles, I don't like this, he feels even warmer now.”

Knuckles, who hadn't so much as flinched throughout this episode, clenched his fists and cursed under his breath so lowly that no one could hear him. “This is what I was afraid of. We were right; he's addicted to Chaos. The emerald wasn't enough; he's even closer to the danger zone than before.”

“He can't afford to be any closer!” Amy cried in disbelief and alarm. “That kind of fever is too high!”

“Amy, dear, please calm down,” Vanilla pleaded, looking up only briefly to make sure Amy was listening. “We had some cushion earlier; he was only a hundred and two, and I would get concerned at higher than a hundred and four or five. We need to know exactly where he's at before we start panicking.”

Unfortunately, tears bubbling in her eyes, Amy would not be calmed down. “He's having trouble breathing! How can I not panic when he can't breathe?!”

“I...” All became tensely quiet as Sonic desperately tried to speak up between ragged breaths. “I c-can breathe... okay... h-hurts a little... Just feels... Feels worse... like... I'm gonna puke... That smell... get it _outta_ here...”

“Smell?” several voices asked in unison before realization dawned, and Knuckles and Tails were the subjects of four absolutely deadly glares from three worried females and a Chao. Tails shrunk back in embarrassment, and Knuckles just sighed.

“Fine. We'll both get showers and then we'll deal with this.” Before Amy could even draw breath to scream at him, Knuckles pushed the reluctant kitsune out of the room, instructing, “You use the one down here, I'll go upstairs.” More quietly, he added, “Don't freak. He won't die in ten minutes.”

Tails swallowed back any reaction, knowing well what it would have been, and nodded emotionlessly. He cast a glance back over his shoulder as the girls tried to swarm poor Sonic and figure out what he needed despite Vanilla's order for space. _Sarcasm isn't helping, Knuckles..._

~~~

By the time the two dumpster divers were clean and dry, Sonic, Cream, and Cheese were asleep once again. Tails only had a second to feel relief that the hedgehog was breathing mostly normally again, though perhaps with shorter breaths, before Amy slowly sat up, the long and stressful day obviously catching up with her, and muttered, “That better fix this, Knuckles.”

Thoroughly unamused, Knuckles glared back at her as he fell onto the love seat, on the other side from Amy. “That wasn't the _problem,_ at least not by itself. The emerald strengthened his senses; the garbage smell just become too overpowering.”

“So will he be back to normal after this?” questioned Tails, biting his lip. “Or will he at least be back where he was before?”

“No.” Knuckles set his jaw. “When he used the emerald, it didn't cancel the effects of withdrawal; it enhanced them instead by adding its own energy to what he already had. He almost always has a little Chaos running through him—it's just part of being able to use the emeralds like he can. So this new, outside energy came in and reacted violently with what was already there. A little energy plus a little more energy equaled a lot of energy, but not enough to fix the problem, so he's worse off than before.”

Tails's face fell, and he quickly protested, “But that shouldn't... Then... How are we going to fix this if using the emeralds makes him worse? What would happen if we used a whole bunch on him at once like that?”

“I... I don't...” Knuckles took one look at the distress in the fox's blue eyes and wanted to punch something. “Look, we'll take care of this, okay? When you use more than one Chaos Emerald, you get more energy output from all of them. We might be able to gather enough energy to... to overwhelm him, I guess, but in a good way.”

A moment of thought later, Tails murmured, “The whole idea behind this thing is that his body thinks it needs those emeralds. So, theoretically, we should be able to give him enough Chaos to satisfy that need. But if we don't want this to happen again, we'll have to use as much as possible without going all-out.”

“Has he ever tried to use only six emeralds at a time?” asked Knuckles suddenly. “Like we were originally planning? Did he ever interact with only six of them when I wasn't looking?”

“Um, no, I don't think... wait a second, yeah!” Tails's eyes widened as a memory struck him. “It was a long time ago, though. Like, before we met. I remember him being surprised to find the seventh one in a special zone, cuz he'd only found six the last time he'd stopped Eggman—er, Robotnik, at the time.” He cocked his head confusedly; “Does that make a difference, d'ya think?”

“Yes,” Knuckles immediately answered, “a good one. When he found the seventh emerald—when he went Super Sonic for the first time—do you remember how he reacted?”

Tails's brows furrowed, and he slowly answered, “I... think so. I remember him looking really surprised and trying to figure out what was going on, why he was suddenly yellow. He didn't think the emeralds did anything until then.”

Knuckles sighed and unclenched his fists. “That's good. That's really good.”

“Why?” Amy piped up for the first time in a while.

“That means he probably can't sense a difference between having six and seven emeralds, but he'd need all seven to transform.” Knuckles leaned forward, earnestly counting on his fingers, which were barely visible underneath his mittens. “If we only use six, he'll probably get exactly what he needs—which is a whole ton of energy—without anything more, like Super Sonic. _If_ we can get them in time, it should be enough to fix this mess.”

The room let out a collective sigh of relief, which hung right alongside fear in the atmosphere.

“We need a game plan,” Tails decided immediately. “We have to get the emeralds as quick as we can, before he gets any worse. How long do you think we have?”

A chilly silence once again reigned until Amy took over; “Well, he finally threw up right after after you left. I guess that was kind of a relief, to get it over with, but Vanilla's worried about what it might mean.”

“What might it mean?” Tails was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he wanted to be sure.

Vanilla picked her head up off the pillow she'd been resting on to eye the kit with worry clouding her visage. “If he can't keep anything down from this point on, then he could be in serious trouble. He'll get dehydrated, he could lose quite a bit of weight, the fever might cause some internal damage that can't be reversed...”

“Not to mention the fact that since his system works faster than most people's,” Amy added solemnly, “he'll get dehydrated and malnourished faster.”

Vanilla nodded slowly. “We have to get that fever down and get him eating. He hasn't had a thing to eat all day; I'm already worried about him.”

“The only way we're going to do that is to find the other five emeralds, all at once,” Knuckles reaffirmed gruffly. “Using only one more might be enough to land him in the hospital... or worse.”

A dreadful silence fell over everyone, all eyes helplessly coming to rest on the sleeping blue hero as reality settled in and they realized how close they were to the breaking point. There was precious little room for error, a fact which was almost scarier than the prospect of Sonic hitting such a point, for no one wanted to be the one to mess something up at some critical moment and upset the delicate balance.

“I think he'll be okay for now,” Vanilla finally said with a sigh, “at least for long enough to let us rest up and get ready to move.”

Knuckles nodded stiffly. “We need to get _that_ thing—” He thrust one hand toward the Chaos Emerald, sitting innocently on the coffee table in dangerously close proximity to Sonic—“out of here and let him regroup a little. Did you get his temperature?”

“A-a hundred and three point eight,” Amy reported shakily, apparently caught between the joy of hope and the dread of possibility. “He's in the clear, but not by much. He might still be reacting, too; it could get higher, and then we're in trouble.”

“At any rate, he's miserable and we need to help him as soon as possible,” finished Tails. He picked up the emerald and studied its glowing green surface in a sleepy daze. “I can use the emerald we have to speed up the search; I can use it to power up the radar and make the _Tornado_ faster.”

“In the morning, sweetie,” admonished Vanilla gently, eliciting protests from everyone. The rabbit would hear none of this. “You need your rest, too, if you're going to go out gallivanting across the world. We wouldn't want you to be drowsy and sleepy while you're hunting.”

A moment of miffed silence passed before Amy huffed an agreement for them all. “But that counts for you too, Miss Vanilla. If you don't wake me up by three to keep an eye on him, we're gonna have problems.”

No one could decipher if she was serious or not, but Vanilla nodded just the same; “Of course, dear, as long as you're up to it.”

~~~

That night was a rough one for Tails. For one thing, Knuckles had crashed on the floor and was simultaneously snoring like a lawn mower and rolling around like a log; he bumped into the desk at one point and knocked a notebook off the table and into his face, yet he never woke up. How he could be such a heavy sleeper and still manage to keep the Master Emerald safe was beyond even Tails's brilliant mind.

Then, when the fox finally did doze off, his slumber was fitful, full of dreams of that which he feared would happen. Multiple times, he awoke gasping, the image of his best friend being taken from him in multiple ways—from being bound and kidnapped to being killed in countless different, horrifying ways—fresh on his mind's eye.

_This is worse than sleeping during an Eggman mission,_ he mused to himself as he rolled over for the _n_ th time.

Thinking back to the war days, Tails could, on some level, understand why he felt this way. Sonic had never been in this much pain before, not even when Eggman got lucky; certainly he'd never been so poor at hiding his discomfort. On the off chance he did get injured, he had generally suffered through it quietly because he figured he had let it happen and there was nothing he could do, and rare was the time he would be verbal about it. This, conversely, was apparently beyond his control to the point where his unwillingness to admit to his pain, which had previously never been broken, had been overcome by whatever horrible things he was experiencing now.

Meanwhile, Vanilla's warnings, inconclusive though they were, echoed menacingly in Tails's head. They all knew from experience that dehydration was not a force to be toyed with, and Sonic had such a high metabolism that to go for long without food was to put him in great danger. Even though no one had been willing to voice this aloud, if they didn't get the Chaos Emeralds in time, death was a slim but still present possibility—death as a reward for saving the lives of others with this great power.

Always before, when Sonic had been on the brink of this level of danger, Tails had known he would have died doing what he loved and knowing he'd changed lives for the better. If he didn't make it through this, it would be only after a long, painful, and, above all, reluctant fight—a fight with himself that he hadn't asked for.

Sonic didn't deserve that. He deserved to get to enjoy the world he'd had such a huge part in freeing. He couldn't lose now.

_We'll try our best. He'll never give up, and neither should I._ He repeated these words to himself over and over, almost whisper-screaming them at one point when he felt particularly overwhelmed.

However, he couldn't stop the rebuttal from taking root in a small corner of his brain; What if our best isn't good enough?

~~~

“It's dawn somewhere,” Knuckles grumbled, dropping his chin in his hands as he sat Indian style on the _Tornado's_ wing once again. “Right?”

“It will be when we get there,” Tails responded patiently. “Mazuri has nice sunrises, especially in the jungle.”

“If nothing else...”

Tails rolled his eyes. The echidna certainly had no excuse for being cranky; _he'd_ slept fine.

Once again, the plane ride was near silent, though this time for different reasons, as the vast continent of Mazuri spread its lush rain forest splendor out in welcoming. The sunlight certainly had a breathtaking effect on the greenery when it did finally come out; the rich, reflective light was so bright Knuckles had to look away.

“Yeah, _great_ sunrise,” came his caustic jab.

“The sunsets are better,” was Tails's only consolation.

Some great distance into the jungle, Tails brought the _Tornado_ down in the clearing nearest to the spot the radar had pinpointed their goal to be—which, unfortunately, was nowhere near the site, by any definition of the word.

“Somebody up there thinks this is a funny game,” Knuckles grumbled, “making this as hard as reasonably possible without actually getting anybody killed.”

“News?” Tails deadpanned, jumping out of the cockpit with his Miles Electric, now complete with the green Chaos Emerald nestled in an attachment to the device. “Come on, it's this way. Looks like it's in some old ruins.”

“News?” Knuckles mimicked. Tails merely brushed past him to take the lead, leaving the miffed echidna to follow at his leisure.

They pushed through bushes and vines for all of two minutes before something solid landed in front of them. Tails squeaked in surprise, and suddenly Knuckles was between him and the thing, fists clenched and growling, “Stay back!”

At the same moment, the two recognized the feminine figure standing before them, but before either one could speak, she beat them to it; “Goodness, you just get more and more charming every time we meet, Knuckie.”

“Rouge!” While Tails spoke her name out of relief, Knuckles spoke it out of annoyance.

“You've gotta be kidding me,” he groaned, his shoulders falling a good inch as displeasure sunk in. “What are _you_ doing out here, and now of all times?”

“Let's pretend you don't know the answer to that one, honey,” Rouge drawled, her usual seductive smile firmly in place as she sauntered toward the duo. “There are all kinds of archeological sites out here—ruins full of old treasures no one cares about. It's easy to find real gems out here. But I didn't figure I'd run into _you...”_ Tails couldn't help but snicker; Knuckles just fought an angry blush and clenched his teeth.

“Yeah, well, we're looking for something, and it's a whole lot more important than you, so if you don't _mind...”_ He firmly clamped his hand on Tails's quaking shoulder and led him to the side. “We'd like to get back to that.”

Rouge followed lightly, stepping back to block their path once again with the graceful speed of a feral cheetah. “Well then, if you're looking for something, then who better to find it than a treasure hunter?”

“Don't forget, Rouge, I _am_ a treasure hunter,” Knuckles broke in before she could get any further, “and a better one than you. Besides, it's not like we've never found any Chaos Emeralds by ourselves before.”

Rouge's teal eyes lit up, and Knuckles instantly realized his mistake and mentally cursed himself.

“A Chaos Emerald, hm?” she repeated in interest. “Well, then, I guess that makes it a race. First one to get to it takes it home.”

“No way!” Knuckles's scowl deepened as he took an extra step forward. “We actually need it. You just want to take it home and shine a light on it to make it a disco ball or something.”

“So picky...” Rouge rolled her eyes. “So where's Big Blue? Off searching already?”

Tails jumped in with a new tactic before Knuckles could say anything; “Actually, Sonic's the reason we need the emerald. I can't really explain it without going into some Chaos theory, but he's really sick and the only way to help him is by finding the Chaos Emeralds.”

Rouge raised an eyebrow in carefully guarded curiosity. “Really? He was just fine the other day at the fair. But then again, so was this knucklehead.”

“We don't have time to explain,” Knuckles cut in gruffly. “If you don't believe us, then fine. I don't care.” He tossed his dreadlocks arrogantly as he turned around on his heel to walk away. “We'll beat you to the emerald either way.”

Tails cast the silent bat an apologetic glance before faithfully following Knuckles. About three steps into the jungle, Rouge's voice once again gave them pause;

“Tell you what. If it's for Sonic, why don't I give you a hand, instead?”

“What? Really?” Tails smiled gratefully at her, but Knuckles turned around with a flourish, daggers back in his eyes.

“Nice try,” he scoffed. “What's in it for you?”

The bat's teal eyes rolled up toward the heavens. “You've wizened up, Knuckie. Keep that up and it won't be as much fun to tease you.”

“That would be the idea.”

“Whatever. I never said anything about you keeping it.”

“And just how are we supposed to use it for Sonic if you have it?” Knuckles demanded, folding his arms. “No deal.”

“He'll let you look at the Master Emerald for a whole five minutes without doing anything threatening,” Tails blurted out.

“What?!” came the indignant cry from Knuckles he'd been expecting.

_“Look?”_ Rouge repeated, laughing a little. “Hon, you're going to have to try harder than that.”

“... I'll give you a picture of it.” Clearly, Knuckles hated every syllable of the sentence coming out of his mouth, and his muzzle reddened still more when the bat tossed her head in disinterest.

“Keep trying.”

“Okay,” Tails offered reluctantly, “Knuckles, please don't kill me for this, but Rouge, what if we use the emerald for what we need to do and give it to you when we're done? Knuckles,” he interrupted himself upon seeing the addressed bristling indignantly, “we don't have time to stand around and argue, and Rouge can probably help us out a lot. Besides, it's not like Eggman's around to take it from her, right?”

Rouge winked at the ten-year-old, who jumped nervously. “I like the way you think, sugar.”

Anger turned Knuckles's face an interesting shade of red, but he nodded stiffly. “You know what, whatever. I don't care. Let's just get this thing and get going. I don't want to leave the girls any longer than we have to.”

From that point, the duo became a trio. They advanced toward the ruins in good time, thanks to Knuckles and Rouge's unspoken competition to see who could cut aside more brush to clear the way. All along the way, Rouge was filled in on the bare basics of Sonic's condition; she comprehended more of it than Tails had expected, but then, she had never been slow on the uptake.

“Stinks to be him,” she commented dryly after using her screw-kick attack to slash aside some tangled vines. “That's what he gets after everything he did?”

“What would you know?” Knuckles grumbled. “You've never done anything without getting something in return. You can't always work everything out in your favor, believe it or not.”

“I know that,” Rouge scoffed; deep down, both of her companions wondered if there wasn't a hint of genuine, underlying offense in her voice. “That's why I said it stinks to be him.”

“Thank you for helping us, Rouge,” Tails offered in a shy attempt to change the topic, smiling in a manner to match his tone. “It really means a lot, especially since... I know you'd way rather just hang on to it. So thanks.”

“Anytime, sugar,” purred the bat. “I owe Big Blue as much as anyone else.”

“Cut the sappy stuff and let's get moving,” Knuckles muttered. Tails just rolled his eyes and hurried after the retreating echidna; he knew his older friend saw too many reasons to mistrust Rouge in this particular situation, but he couldn't see any way around her participation. Either way, Rouge would more likely get the emerald, and that bothered Knuckles on a primal level. Still, she was being helpful, and if she did try something funny, the boys were more than capable of stopping her.

It was admirable how much Knuckles was willing to give up to help Sonic, who he constantly refused to associate with as a friend but rather as more of a rival he was on good terms with, and, somehow, the knowledge that he would never let Sonic come to harm made Tails feel marginally better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Choppy ending is choppy... And I hate author's notes at the end of chapters, so I'll end this one here. 
> 
> Reviews are much appreciated!


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